This critical study focusing exclusively on Annie Ernaux's writing trajectory provides an analysis of her individual texts. Following a broadly feminist hermeneutic, it engages in a series of close ...
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This critical study focusing exclusively on Annie Ernaux's writing trajectory provides an analysis of her individual texts. Following a broadly feminist hermeneutic, it engages in a series of close readings of Ernaux's works in a move to highlight the contradictions and nuances in her writing, and to demonstrate the intellectual intricacies of her literary project. By so doing, the study seeks to introduce new readers to Ernaux's works, while engaging on less-familiar terrain those already familiar with her writing.Less

Annie Ernaux : The Return to Origins

Siobhan McIlvanney

Published in print: 2000-06-01

This critical study focusing exclusively on Annie Ernaux's writing trajectory provides an analysis of her individual texts. Following a broadly feminist hermeneutic, it engages in a series of close readings of Ernaux's works in a move to highlight the contradictions and nuances in her writing, and to demonstrate the intellectual intricacies of her literary project. By so doing, the study seeks to introduce new readers to Ernaux's works, while engaging on less-familiar terrain those already familiar with her writing.

The most successful female writer from Francophone Africa, Calixthe Beyala occupies an unusual place in French literary and popular culture. Her novels are bestsellers and she appears regularly on ...
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The most successful female writer from Francophone Africa, Calixthe Beyala occupies an unusual place in French literary and popular culture. Her novels are bestsellers and she appears regularly on French television, yet a conviction for plagiarism has tarnished her reputation. Thus, she is both an ‘authentic’ African author and a proven literary ‘fake’. This book considers representations of Beyala in the media, critical responses to her writing, and Beyala's efforts to position herself as a champion of women's rights. The book pays equal attention to Beyala's novels, tracing their explorations of the role of migration in the creation of personal identity.Less

Calixthe Beyala : Performances of Migration

Nicki Hitchcott

Published in print: 2006-10-01

The most successful female writer from Francophone Africa, Calixthe Beyala occupies an unusual place in French literary and popular culture. Her novels are bestsellers and she appears regularly on French television, yet a conviction for plagiarism has tarnished her reputation. Thus, she is both an ‘authentic’ African author and a proven literary ‘fake’. This book considers representations of Beyala in the media, critical responses to her writing, and Beyala's efforts to position herself as a champion of women's rights. The book pays equal attention to Beyala's novels, tracing their explorations of the role of migration in the creation of personal identity.

This book celebrates the work of the French Nobel prize-winning novelist Claude Simon. Scholars from France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom reconsider the fifty years of Simon's ...
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This book celebrates the work of the French Nobel prize-winning novelist Claude Simon. Scholars from France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom reconsider the fifty years of Simon's fiction in the light of his large-scale autobiographical novel ‘Le Jardin des Plantes’ (1997). From a variety of perspectives — postmodernist, psychoanalytic, aesthetic — chapters reflect on the central paradox of Simon's work: his writing and rewriting of an experience of war so disruptive and traumatic that words can never be adequate to communicate it. The layers of artifice in ‘Le Jardin des Plantes’ and the nature of Simon's aesthetic are analyzed in chapters which explore intertextual resonances between Simon and Proust, Flaubert, Borges and Poussin. A complementary view of Simon's ‘Photographies 1937–1970’ shows that it too can be seen as form of indirect autobiography.Less

Claude Simon : A Retrospective

Published in print: 2002-06-01

This book celebrates the work of the French Nobel prize-winning novelist Claude Simon. Scholars from France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom reconsider the fifty years of Simon's fiction in the light of his large-scale autobiographical novel ‘Le Jardin des Plantes’ (1997). From a variety of perspectives — postmodernist, psychoanalytic, aesthetic — chapters reflect on the central paradox of Simon's work: his writing and rewriting of an experience of war so disruptive and traumatic that words can never be adequate to communicate it. The layers of artifice in ‘Le Jardin des Plantes’ and the nature of Simon's aesthetic are analyzed in chapters which explore intertextual resonances between Simon and Proust, Flaubert, Borges and Poussin. A complementary view of Simon's ‘Photographies 1937–1970’ shows that it too can be seen as form of indirect autobiography.

"The Colonial Fortune" highlights the features of a paracolonial aesthetics emanating from a significant body of contemporary Hexagonal and non-metropolitan texts. Authored by writers who are either ...
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"The Colonial Fortune" highlights the features of a paracolonial aesthetics emanating from a significant body of contemporary Hexagonal and non-metropolitan texts. Authored by writers who are either directly involved in the debate about the colonial past and its remanence (J. M. G. Le Clézio, Paule Constant, Édouard Glissant, Tierno Monénembo, Marie NDiaye, and Leïla Sebbar) or who do not overtly manifest such concerns (Stéphane Audeguy, Marie Darrieussecq, Régis Jauffret, Pierre Michon, and Claude Simon), these works create a shared imaginary space permeated by the symbolic, rhetorical, and conceptual presence of colonialism in our postcolonial era. The paracolonial describes the phenomena of revival, resurgence, remanence, and residue – in other words, the permanence of the colonial in contemporary imagination. It also addresses the re-imagining, revisiting, and recasting of the colonial in current works of literature (fiction, autobiography, and essay). The idea of the colonial fortune emerges as an interface between our era’s concerns with issues of fate, economics, legacy, and debt stemming from the understudied persistence of the colonial in today’s political and cultural conversation, and literature’s ways of making sense of them both sensorially and sensibly.Less

The Colonial Fortune in Contemporary Fiction in French

Oana Panaïté

Published in print: 2018-01-01

"The Colonial Fortune" highlights the features of a paracolonial aesthetics emanating from a significant body of contemporary Hexagonal and non-metropolitan texts. Authored by writers who are either directly involved in the debate about the colonial past and its remanence (J. M. G. Le Clézio, Paule Constant, Édouard Glissant, Tierno Monénembo, Marie NDiaye, and Leïla Sebbar) or who do not overtly manifest such concerns (Stéphane Audeguy, Marie Darrieussecq, Régis Jauffret, Pierre Michon, and Claude Simon), these works create a shared imaginary space permeated by the symbolic, rhetorical, and conceptual presence of colonialism in our postcolonial era. The paracolonial describes the phenomena of revival, resurgence, remanence, and residue – in other words, the permanence of the colonial in contemporary imagination. It also addresses the re-imagining, revisiting, and recasting of the colonial in current works of literature (fiction, autobiography, and essay). The idea of the colonial fortune emerges as an interface between our era’s concerns with issues of fate, economics, legacy, and debt stemming from the understudied persistence of the colonial in today’s political and cultural conversation, and literature’s ways of making sense of them both sensorially and sensibly.

At a time when the world is contemplating the depletion of non-renewable natural resources, the consumer society is increasingly being called into question. This is nowhere more acutely evident than ...
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At a time when the world is contemplating the depletion of non-renewable natural resources, the consumer society is increasingly being called into question. This is nowhere more acutely evident than in France, where since its beginnings in the nineteenth century, the consumer revolution, extending market forces into every area of social and private life, has been perceived as a challenge to core elements in French culture, such as traditional artisan crafts and small businesses serving local communities. Cultural historians and sociologists have charted the increasing commercialisation of everyday life over the twentieth century, but few have paid systematic attention to the crucial testimony provided by the authors of narrative fiction. This book rectifies this omission by means of close readings of a series of novels, selected for their authentic portrayal of consumer behaviour, and analysed in relation to their social, cultural and historical contexts.Less

Consumer Chronicles : Cultures of Consumption in Modern French Literature

David H. Walker

Published in print: 2011-03-31

At a time when the world is contemplating the depletion of non-renewable natural resources, the consumer society is increasingly being called into question. This is nowhere more acutely evident than in France, where since its beginnings in the nineteenth century, the consumer revolution, extending market forces into every area of social and private life, has been perceived as a challenge to core elements in French culture, such as traditional artisan crafts and small businesses serving local communities. Cultural historians and sociologists have charted the increasing commercialisation of everyday life over the twentieth century, but few have paid systematic attention to the crucial testimony provided by the authors of narrative fiction. This book rectifies this omission by means of close readings of a series of novels, selected for their authentic portrayal of consumer behaviour, and analysed in relation to their social, cultural and historical contexts.

In the wake of the Second World War, ideas of Europe abounded. What did Europe mean as a concept, and what did it mean to be European? Europeanising Spaces in Paris, c. 1947-1962 makes the case that ...
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In the wake of the Second World War, ideas of Europe abounded. What did Europe mean as a concept, and what did it mean to be European? Europeanising Spaces in Paris, c. 1947-1962 makes the case that Paris was both a leading and distinctive forum for the expression of these ideas in the post-war period. It examines urban, political and cultural spaces in the French capital in which ideas about Europe were formulated, articulated, exchanged, circulated, and contested during this post-war period, roughly between the escalation of the Cold War and the end of France's war of decolonisation in Algeria. The Parisian café, home and street are each examined in terms of how they were implicated in ideas about Europe. Then, the Paris-based Mouvement socialiste des états unis d'Europe (The Socialist Movement for the United States of Europe) and the far-right wing Fédération des étudiants nationalistes (The Federation of Nationalist Students) are examined as examples of political movements that mobilised around–very different–concepts of Europe. The final section on cultural Europeanising spaces draws attention to the specificities of the Europeanism of exiles from Franco's Spain in Paris; the work of the great scholar of the Arab world, Jacques Berque, in the context of his understanding of the Mediterranean world; and finally, the work of the legendary photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, by looking at the capacities and limitations of the photographic medium for the representation of Europe, and how these corresponded with Cartier-Bresson’s commitments.Less

Europeanising Spaces in Paris c. 1947-1962

Hugh McDonnell

Published in print: 2016-07-01

In the wake of the Second World War, ideas of Europe abounded. What did Europe mean as a concept, and what did it mean to be European? Europeanising Spaces in Paris, c. 1947-1962 makes the case that Paris was both a leading and distinctive forum for the expression of these ideas in the post-war period. It examines urban, political and cultural spaces in the French capital in which ideas about Europe were formulated, articulated, exchanged, circulated, and contested during this post-war period, roughly between the escalation of the Cold War and the end of France's war of decolonisation in Algeria. The Parisian café, home and street are each examined in terms of how they were implicated in ideas about Europe. Then, the Paris-based Mouvement socialiste des états unis d'Europe (The Socialist Movement for the United States of Europe) and the far-right wing Fédération des étudiants nationalistes (The Federation of Nationalist Students) are examined as examples of political movements that mobilised around–very different–concepts of Europe. The final section on cultural Europeanising spaces draws attention to the specificities of the Europeanism of exiles from Franco's Spain in Paris; the work of the great scholar of the Arab world, Jacques Berque, in the context of his understanding of the Mediterranean world; and finally, the work of the legendary photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, by looking at the capacities and limitations of the photographic medium for the representation of Europe, and how these corresponded with Cartier-Bresson’s commitments.

This is the first full-length study to cover the complete texts of Hervé Guibert (1955–1991), offering a thorough documentation of his literary output. The book is guided by Guibert's relation to the ...
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This is the first full-length study to cover the complete texts of Hervé Guibert (1955–1991), offering a thorough documentation of his literary output. The book is guided by Guibert's relation to the novel, a major line of enquiry throughout, as well as his experimentation with voices in particular. One of the author's main contentions is that Guibert arrives at the creation of a new literary genre, the roman faux, with the publication of his best-known work To the Friend who did not save my life. The book ends by considering the works Guibert produced after he was diagnosed as HIV positive, within the parameter of the voices of the self.Less

Hervé Guibert: Voices of the Self

Jean Pierre Boulé

Published in print: 1999-03-01

This is the first full-length study to cover the complete texts of Hervé Guibert (1955–1991), offering a thorough documentation of his literary output. The book is guided by Guibert's relation to the novel, a major line of enquiry throughout, as well as his experimentation with voices in particular. One of the author's main contentions is that Guibert arrives at the creation of a new literary genre, the roman faux, with the publication of his best-known work To the Friend who did not save my life. The book ends by considering the works Guibert produced after he was diagnosed as HIV positive, within the parameter of the voices of the self.

This book draws attention to the existence in France of an AIDS literature from 1985 to 1988 before AIDS writing became either a widely recognized genre or a culturally influential form of writing. ...
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This book draws attention to the existence in France of an AIDS literature from 1985 to 1988 before AIDS writing became either a widely recognized genre or a culturally influential form of writing. It is a predominantly literary critical study, informed by gender studies and psychoanalytic criticism in its readings of individual texts, and interwoven with contextual information.Less

HIV Stories : The Archaeology of AIDS Writing in France, 1985-1988

Jean Pierre Boulé

Published in print: 2002-05-01

This book draws attention to the existence in France of an AIDS literature from 1985 to 1988 before AIDS writing became either a widely recognized genre or a culturally influential form of writing. It is a predominantly literary critical study, informed by gender studies and psychoanalytic criticism in its readings of individual texts, and interwoven with contextual information.

This book revisits a critical paradigm that has often been overlooked or dismissed by science fiction scholars - namely, that science fiction can be understood in terms of myth. For the purposes of ...
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This book revisits a critical paradigm that has often been overlooked or dismissed by science fiction scholars - namely, that science fiction can be understood in terms of myth. For the purposes of this study, ‘myth’ is defined as an explanatory narrative, and this book builds upon the theory that myth is functionally similar to science: both are concerned with filling in ‘gaps’ in what is known, though the former fills those gaps with cultural logics (or ‘common sense’) while the latter uses testable hypotheses. Science fiction springs from pseudo-science rather than ‘proper’ science, because pseudo-science is more easily converted into narrative; in this book it is argued that different cultures produce distinct pseudo-sciences, and thus, unique science fiction traditions. This framework is used to examine Irish science fiction from the 1850s to the present day, covering material written both in Irish and in English. The author considers science fiction novels and short stories in their historical context, analysing a body of literature that has largely been ignored by Irish literature researchers. This is the first book to focus exclusively on Irish science fiction, and the first to consider Irish-language stories and novels alongside works published in English.Less

Irish Science Fiction

Jack Fennell

Published in print: 2014-12-01

This book revisits a critical paradigm that has often been overlooked or dismissed by science fiction scholars - namely, that science fiction can be understood in terms of myth. For the purposes of this study, ‘myth’ is defined as an explanatory narrative, and this book builds upon the theory that myth is functionally similar to science: both are concerned with filling in ‘gaps’ in what is known, though the former fills those gaps with cultural logics (or ‘common sense’) while the latter uses testable hypotheses. Science fiction springs from pseudo-science rather than ‘proper’ science, because pseudo-science is more easily converted into narrative; in this book it is argued that different cultures produce distinct pseudo-sciences, and thus, unique science fiction traditions. This framework is used to examine Irish science fiction from the 1850s to the present day, covering material written both in Irish and in English. The author considers science fiction novels and short stories in their historical context, analysing a body of literature that has largely been ignored by Irish literature researchers. This is the first book to focus exclusively on Irish science fiction, and the first to consider Irish-language stories and novels alongside works published in English.

Juan Goytisolo is arguably Spain's foremost contemporary novelist. This book is one of the few major studies in English to examine all of his mature works, from ‘Senas de identidad’ in 1966 to ‘Las ...
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Juan Goytisolo is arguably Spain's foremost contemporary novelist. This book is one of the few major studies in English to examine all of his mature works, from ‘Senas de identidad’ in 1966 to ‘Las semanas del jardin’, published in 1997. It focuses on the interface between the thematic content of the novels and its formal expression, viewing this as the crucial nexus of their meaning. Goytisolo's writing is, in his own words, a ‘commitment of myself … for a transformation of the world.’ This book dissects the nature of the relationship between writer and reader to show how Goytisolo's political commitment is reflected in his work.Less

Juan Goytisolo and the Poetics of Contagion : The Evolution of a Radical Aesthetic in the Later Novels

Stanley Black

Published in print: 2001-09-01

Juan Goytisolo is arguably Spain's foremost contemporary novelist. This book is one of the few major studies in English to examine all of his mature works, from ‘Senas de identidad’ in 1966 to ‘Las semanas del jardin’, published in 1997. It focuses on the interface between the thematic content of the novels and its formal expression, viewing this as the crucial nexus of their meaning. Goytisolo's writing is, in his own words, a ‘commitment of myself … for a transformation of the world.’ This book dissects the nature of the relationship between writer and reader to show how Goytisolo's political commitment is reflected in his work.